(The door opens a notch. Before it swings wide, though,
several thick gray feathers, like those
of an oversized ostrich, float through the air.
Then, the door opens. A curly brownish mess of hair, topped by a small slightly tipped dimly lit halo, pokes in: followed by a plump and red, swollen face.)
"Sir?"
(More ostrich-like feathers float inside the doorway.)
"If you're BUSY.....
sir......
we can come BACK......!"

(Their supervisor, huge and massive,
and sternly handsome, is sitting behind
a cluttered desk topped with open
scrolls, colorful maps, an eons-old gold-tipped sword
from the First Fight with The Serpent,
and a pile of various sizes and shapes of silver and gold keys.)
"Angel SYLVESTOR!
Angel BRIGGUND!
Come IN!
And what has become of your....
WINGS,
Angel SYLVESTOR?"

(A second face appears
in the doorway, though not as plump,
though quite mottled with spotty freckles.)
"He's got a COLD,
SIR! He GOT it
down on EARTH!"

(Briggund's buddy, the one with the swollen
red face, sneezes loudly. The wet sneeze scatters all the loose gray feathers all over their supervisor's desk.)

(Their boss, Archangel Michael, is wearing a pair of
reading glasses on his long imperial
nose. His beautiful black brows draw together furiously.
He shouts: his strange and heavy
accent enunciated with Shakespearean style angel-speak.)
"MY WARRIOR-ANGELS
DO NOT GET COLDS!"

(Sylvestor, who has been holding the edge of
his gauzy-gown to his red bulbous button of a nose,
sneezes again. This time the sneeze sprays all over the
ancient scrolled-open map lying open on Archangel Michael's
desk.)

(Archangel Michael's right jaw
muscle begins to tighten, and
clamp down on some invisible force;
it couldn't have been food since the Lord's
Captain of the Third-Layer Fighting Angelic Host
was never known to eat or drink anything,
at all*.)
"Your......
ASSIGNMENT.....
was to go down to
the Second-Layer Quarter,
and deliver two Message Scrolls to
Angel ANTHOMOS!
That was ALL!
WHAT were you
doing down on EARTH?"

(Sylvestor wipes his runny nose again,
and then timidly steps silently over to his
supervisor's big desk. He takes the same dirty edge of
gauze-gown, and dabs it over one of
the wet spots on the ancient open-scroll.)

(Archangel Michael
smacks Sylvestor's
hand away.)

(Sylvestor immediately withdraws his plump
fist, and sucks on his forefinger: still
not saying a word.)

"We DROPPED one 'a the MESSAGE
SCROLLS, SIR!"
(Briggund's freckles
redden, just a bit.)
"We FLEW into
a Second-Layer hailstorm, and the
WIND blew it out
of Sylvestor's hand! It FELL right
down to EARTH!"

(Sylvestor, still sucking on his finger, nods silently and fiercely, in agreement.)

(The Archangel shouts, again: huge
dark eyes flashing through heavily fringed eyelashes,
and above highly sculpted cheekbones; the dark satiny
skin is like velvet, with a touch of almost imperceptable
sparkle. His long black tendrils of waist-long curls
of hair barely move against his resting folded wings, whose
wing-span is almost immeasurable, and the color hues of
which is unknown to human eyes.)
"My WARRIORS...... do not.... DROP things!"

"It FELL, SIR!
It.....FELL!
Right down to EARTH! So we
had to go GET it!"

(Archangel Michael's massive shoulders are absolutely still,
though the inhumanly large muscles of his chest gently move up and down under a mass of tight black curls**.)
"Why didn't just
ONE of YOU.......
......GO?"

(As if in sweaty nervous response, in addition
to the head cold, Sylvestor's right-sided wing begins
to shed, again. More big fluffy gray feathers float to
the golden-tiled floor.)

(Another loud sneeze follows.)

(Archangel Michael begins to rise from
his uncomfortable desk chair. The pure gold tips of his
stiffly crisp wings have begun to bristle out, just a little.)
"WARRIOR ANGELS......are not..
scared of ANYTHING!"

(Briggund's big
blue eyes rolled toward his friend's
plump face, again.)
"Well.......ANYWAY!
We both flew DOWN there! And
that's when we encountered DRAKULITCH!"

(Michael's heavily accented voice, through an
amazingly soft Shakespearean tongue, is barely
understood by the cowering, much smaller angels.)
"WHO?"

(Sylvestor....who was stooping to kneel on
the gold tiles, not to pray but to carefully pick up his
stray fallen feathers one by one... spoke up: his voice
hoarse from his cold, and nasally from his stuffed-up nose.)
"Darth Demon's
SUPERVISOR........
Lower-Lessor Demon DRAKULITCH!"

(Briggund
looks down to nod
sympathetically with
his buddy; just before this newest
assignment Briggund
had been working
outside with the
Saints' Horses For
Marching Day, and his
bright red freckles
were still very sunburnt.)
"Yeah!
Demon Drakulitch,
SIR! He's a meany,
that one.......,
SIR!"
(Briggund hiccupped; he always got air
bubbles in his stomach when he had to
go through Earth's atmostphere.)
"He's a MEAN one, sir!
Got HORNS comin' outta his neck,
THAT one! You should SEE him!
Big and SLIMY, and GREEN....he is!
He's BIG, but he WADDLES!"

(Sylvestor was sitting on the gold-tiled floor:
trying to stuff back the feathers into his
wings: squinting at each feather through red swollen
eyes, and trying not to sneeze. )
"Yeah, SIR!
HE was HOLDING
my Message-Scroll,
and was LAUGHING,
and started FIGHTING us with it, like a SWORD!"

(Archangel Michael was now standing behind his
desk: huge muscles bare arms folded
over his chest; the beige gauzy material
of his day-tunic gently being stretched with each
angelic-take of breath. Michael's
voice became lower, and even more heavily accented;
his usually strong scent, that of a camp fire buring
on a midsummer's night, became even more pungent.)
"And where IS
the SCROLL,
Angel Sylvestor?"

(Sylvestor's small plump face popped up behind the huge
desk. Several gray feathers were stuck to his bulbous, red
splotchy nose.)
"Well.......Demon
Drakulitch has still
GOT IT, sir! We TRIED to get it BACK, but........"

(The Archangel's
heavy jaw muscles
tightened; he looked
as if he were clamping down on a
metal pole-bar used
in the Earth-Olympics.)
"But..........WHAT?"

(Briggund's round
blue eyes slid upward
as they followed up the Archangel's massive
height, and wing-spread. He thought he could
see the very tip, of the edge, of Archangel
Michael's fiery-hot halo, but he wasn't sure.
Briggund's freckled mouth opened, dumbfounded for a
moment, and then
moved, again.)
"Eh..........well,
sir........"

(Archangel Michael's wings, of which each feather was rainbow
tinted and sparkling with a frost-like glittery substance
something akin to the snowflakes on an Earth's Alaskan morn, stiffly opened by just a heavenly inch of breath. The
Archangel shouted.)
"WELL......WHAT?"

(Sylvestor suddenly
shouted with a woeful,
and nasally voice.)
"DRAKULITCH
cast a SPELL on
me, SIR! He cast
a SPELL on ME,
and gave me THIS... COLD!"
(Sylvestor sneezed;
more gray feathers
floated fell off both
his matted, gray
wings like the fur
of a big brown labrador
on a hot summer's
day.)

(Archangel Michael began to
walk, barefoot of course, around from
behind his uncomfortable desk. His
massive height was becoming more evident.)
"HOW could he
cast a SPELL on you,
Angel Sylvestor,
if you were wearing
your Force-SHIELD?"

(Briggund fingered the Snickers almond candy bar in his
left gauzy-gown pocket, but then thought the better of it; the last time he got caught eating in the Archangel's office, he got
demoted to taking care of the Saints' Day
of the Lord's Horses.)
"He FORGOT it,
sir! Sylvestor hadn't worn his in a
while......ya know.....
cuz he had been over workin' at the
Throne Gift Shop....
after he got
demoted from Throne Room Duty
cuz he got caught
chewin' candy-cotton flavored BUBBLE GUM during a STAFF meeting......."

(Sylvestor sneezed
into a big rolled-up
wad of his gauzy-gown, again.
With each sneeze,
a drizzle of gray
feathers floated down to the gold tiled floor.)

(Chef-Angel Lotharimus poked his head in the door.
The chef was plumper than Sylvestor, though taller, and had a mass of strawberry-colored hair under his chef's-halo. Lotharimus is wearing a big chef's apron over his rounded out gauzy-gown: it is robins-egg blue, and has bright red decals of fruit and vegetables on it. He is carrying a red-checked linen-covered wooden basket; a mouth-watering waft of hot chicken noodle soup, freshly baked thick dough-bread, hot apple pie with crumbly crust, and soft almond and chocolate chipped
oatmeal cookies, follow inside, also.)
"SIR? I MADE SOME BROTH AND
NOODLES FOR SYLVESTOR! CAN
I BRING IT IN,
FOR HIM?"

(The Archangel shouted, thunderously. One
of the map scrolls shook, and rolled off the big wooden
supervisor-desk.)
"NO!
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
NO FOOD IS TO BE
PERMITTED IN THE ASSIGNMENT
DEBRIEFING ROOM!
WAIT OUTSIDE!"

(Chef-Angel Lotharimus's head nods, beneath his mass of strawberry hair and tall chef's halo, and disappears from the golden-sword-framed doorway. The smell of just-baked oatmeal cookies and chicken noodle soup
lingers, however, in the neatly cluttered office. )

(Sylvestor steps forward quietly and timidly,
on plump bare toes, and pulls on his supervisor's long,
trailing gown. His voice is a hoarse squeak, and sounds
as if big wads of cotton were stuffed up each
little nostril.)
"............SIR?"

(The Archangel glares down at his own latest assignment, from his LORD and King: one that has tested his angelic patience and warrior's endurance, with the utmost trial.)
"WHAT IS IT,
ANGEL SYLVESTOR......?"

(Sylvestor whispers:
squinting way up at
his supervisor's fiercely dark face.)
"Can I get an EXCUSE.......NOTE?
So.....I won't have to
go to Sword-Fighting Practice Class,
TODAY? Ya know.....what with my COLD,
and all......"
***********************
Then war
arose
in Heaven,
Michael
and his angels
fighting
against
the dragon.
[Revelation 12:7]

*Eating is something that angels
can do, or not do; it's like humans....,
and watching bastketball.
**Archangel Michael is the only angel
allowed to have chest hair.